Lot 115: Untitled

N.S. Harsha (B. 1969)
Untitled
signed and dated 'Harsha 97/98' (on the reverse)
mixed media on canvas mounted on board
83 x 76in. (210.8 x 193cm.)
Executed circa 1997

N.S Harsha has observed the 'texture' of the land from rice paddies and tea plantations prominent in Southern India to the blue waters surrounding the perimeter of the country. He was inspired to make this work after his first airplane flight taken as an adult. Harsha is a noted scavenger of images (whether it is outer space or ephemera from children's text books; from contemporary street scenes to Company school portraits and religious imagery from Tanjore) that he uses as a basis for his works. In a collaborative project with children from the Queensland Museum of Art as part of the Third Asia-Pacific Triennial in 1999, he stated that he sees the foot as a representation of the human condition, about a place and time as a recording of an age and moment (Harsha, N.S., "Footprint of Time," APT3 Video Clips, http://www.apt3.net/apt3/contentpages/video_mainpage.htm, 5 August 2007). This work has a strong topographical as well as cartographic element in its depiction of an aerial view of the Indian landscape. The notion of the foot employed by the artist may also serve as a proxy for India, the country if roughly overlaid, the mosaic of the landscape reflecting the diversity of the geography and the populace. Harsha is also referencing the age-old concept of the pada , the iconic imagery of the feet used in classical Hindu and Buddhist texts to represent the transitory presence of the unknowable and inexpressible divine.